Winning baseball teams – and the one third rule

Once again I am “on the road”. It’s Monday and I am sitting here in a Starbucks coffee shop in Mississauga. It’s mid afternoon and like all coffee shops and cafes I have seen many people come and go over the past 90 minutes or so that I have been sitting here. When I first arrived it was jam packed with people (understandable given that it was the lunch hour). But within a few minutes things got a bit quieter to the point where I was able to find a seat, set up my laptop, tap into their wireless Internet connection, grab a coffee and get underway. No sooner had I got all those things going than another crowd rushed in. And left again. Just seems to be the ebb and flow of places like this.

And while it’s tempting to write a blog entry about Starbucks and similar food outlets and the role they play in today’s society (especially since I am reading a book right now which discusses that very subject!), that’s not my topic for today. Instead, it’s mid February and while the Toronto area is wrapped in the cold embrace of a typical Canadian winter (especially given that we had a storm last weekend that dumped something like 30 cm of snow on the region), this time of year has many people longing for the coming of spring. And in various places across the southern United States (especially in Florida and Arizona), this time of year means that baseball spring training will be here soon – later this week if one believes the media reports now coming out of Dunedin, Florida (where the Toronto Blue Jays have gathered every year since their founding in 1977). Before we know it the “boys of summer” will be honing their craft in preparation for another baseball season, with all the promises of a winning campaign that only this time of year brings. So in celebration of the upcoming season, I thought it might be fun to share with all of you some thoughts on what makes a winning baseball team, and some elements that will improve a team’s chances of appearing in the World Series – that annual contest for North American baseball supremacy that marks the end of each season.

There are, of course, many formulas and theories that baseball people out there debate for hours on end. For example, I know of one that says if a team wins two thirds or more of their home games, but only half of their road games, they will have an excellent season, with an equally excellent chance of making the playoffs. There may be some merit to this. Based on the standard 162 game regular season in both the National and American Leagues, equally divided into 81 home and 81 away games, this means that a team following this formula would win 54 of their home games, and 41 of their road games, for a combined record of 95 wins against 67 losses. When you look at the records of teams who qualify for the playoffs each season, whether they win their division or qualify as one of the “wild card” teams, 95 wins looks pretty good.

Another one comes into play if you use an “unbalanced” schedule that favours play within your division. Let’s suppose that you have your standard 162 games, but this time you play 18 games (9 home and 9 away) against your divisional rivals, and 10 games each against the other teams. The National and American Leagues both have 3 divisions with 5 teams in each division. If you win two-thirds of your divisional games, that’s 48 of a possible 72 victories. Now add to that base figure the victories awarded if you win only half of the other 90 games (the ones played outside your division). That’s another 45 wins, and when you add the two figures, you get a final total of 93 wins and 69 losses. And a better-than-average chance of making the playoffs.

These are just a couple of many such theories about how baseball teams succeed. As I noted above, there are many others out there, and it would take far too long to examine every one of them. Let me throw another one out there for all of you that yields a slightly different result, but could prove just as successful as the two I just talked about. It goes something like this. Every team, no matter how good or bad, should be able to win 1/3 of their games and lose 1/3. The key phrase in that last sentence is “should be able to win”. Sometimes you get a team that is really good (such as the 1984 Detroit Tigers, who dominated like few teams have, winning 104 regular season games en route to a World Series championship). Or they are really bad (such as many expansion teams in their first couple of years – the 1962 New York Mets who won only 40 games in their first year may be the best example). But examples such as the Tigers or the Mets tend to be the exception. The vast majority of teams tend to use the above formula, which means that your base record for a 162 game season is 54-54. That takes care of two thirds of the 162 games.

The key to success is the subtitle to this blog entry – what I call the “one third” rule. Simply put, I just mentioned above that every team should be able to win 1/3 of the games. But what do baseball teams do with the other third of their games? That’s what the “one third” rule is. The more of those games you win, the greater your chances of success. Let me offer a couple of examples of how this can work. If you win at least 2/3 of the remaining 54 games (36) that gives you at least a 90 win season, which should give you a pretty good shot at post season play. This theory may not be as reasonable as the other formulas I noted earlier (which yields 5 and 3 more wins respectively), but once you get to 90 wins or more, your chances of reaching the post-season improve. Especially if you are in a weak division, where 90 wins can practically guarantee a playoff spot either by winning the division champion or getting a wild card spot. And we all know that in every sport, once you make the playoffs, anything can happen and often does. On the flip side, however, if you only win half of those 54 games (27), then your overall record is evenly split between wins and losses (81-81). While it’s not impossible to make the post-season with a .500 record, and it has been done before, the odds are certainly not in your favour. If you split the difference between winning half your games and two thirds, you’re looking at something like 30 to add to your base figure of 54, and a final total of 84 wins. It goes without saying that it’s a better record than the 81 we mentioned just now. But most baseball fans will tell you that in a 162 game schedule, you really need a minimum of 90 wins to give yourself a reasonable chance of hanging around for the playoffs.

That’s all for now. I hope you enjoyed this lighthearted and fun look at the world of baseball, and a different “take” on what it takes to have a winning team. If you like this “one third rule” idea, feel free to share this with anyone you like. I have written enough for one day, so I think I just might grab another coffee from the gang here at Starbucks and carry on with some other work. As always, thanks for reading this blog entry. I wish you and yours the very best.